Introduction

The disk drive port is a versatile port that can be used for more than disk drives. It supports data rates of 250,000 and 500,000 BAUD and it is DMA driven.

You can add extra floppy disk drives, for Amiga, PC,  MAC, C64 and a few more and some interesting interfaces. The problem with using this port is that the software to use it will be complex (at least in my opinion)

The Amiga use the Shugart bus for the disk drive interface, the same on PC's do, so with a small interface circuit, you can add a PC floppy drive as a replacement (though not high density).

External disk drive connector

           Note: / indicates an active low signal                      

Type Pin Signal Description Input 1 /RDY Disk ready signal Input 2 /DKRD Read data from disk   3 GND     4 GND     5 GND     6 GND     7 GND   Output 8 /MTRX Motor On/Off Output 9 /SEL2 Select drive 2 Output 10 /DRES Disk reset (turn motors off) Input 11 /CHNG Disk change. Logic 0 = no disk.   12 +5V 250 mA max. Output 13 /SIDE Side selection (top or bottom) Input 14 /WPRO Disk is write protected Output 15 /TK0 Disk head at track 0 Output 16 /DKWE Switch to write mode Output 17 /DKWD Write data to the disk Output 18 /STEP Move the read/write head Output 19 /DIR Direction of head movement, low = move toward centre. Output 20 /SEL3 Select drive 3 Output 21 /SEL1 Select drive 1 Input 22 /INDEX Index signal from the drive   23 +12 Volts 160 mA max.

To search aminet for floppy disk related files, click here

Aminet Files,

DriveTest.lha 

Short: Controls & shows floppy drive signals.

- This programs allows you to directly control signals to floppy drives
- Shows which signals drives give to your Amiga
- GUI interface
- Very useful for repairing external/internal drives etc.
- System pure - when running, drives are allocated by disk.resource

TrackDiskSync.lha

Short:    Recalibration tool for floppy drives

Requires: Kickstart 2.04 or better. One working floppy drive. A joystick. Phillips screwdriver set. Nail polish.

Introduction:

This little tool can be used to re-calibrate floppy drives manually. This does not mean that I recommend doing so. In case you're "mechanically declined", you should leave this to an expert, or should consider buying a new drive. In case the drive is broken, it is broken, and this tool won't help much.

De-calibrated drives show the following symptoms: They read disks written by themselves fine, but fail to read other disks reliable, and disks written to by the decalibrated drive do no longer work reliable in other disk drives. In case the drive just doesn't work at all anymore, something more is broken. In either
case, you run into the risk of damaging your hardware even more. Note that I cannot give any guarantee whatsoever that this program and the hints given here are correct, free of errors, etc... The entire risk is up to you. If you break your drive or your computer, tough luck! I refuse to take any responsibilities.

 

PCFloppy2Amiga.lha

Short:    =Use 1.44 PC drives as Amiga HD drives.=

PCFloppy2Amiga is a package describing how the author made a DD (880 KB) floppy drive and a HD (880/1760 KB) floppy drive using a 3.5 inch PC 1.44 Mb floppy drive.
There is also documentation on how to connect 5¼" drives (440/880 KB).
It consists of:
     - AmigaGuide file + iff pictures
     - DRIVEID program to check the identification of
       the drive in the amiga.
     - DriveSpeed to check rotational speed of your drive
     - DriveTest archive included.

The drives are completely compatible with the standard amiga (HD/DD) floppy drives. There is no need for drivers if you use kickstart 2.x and higher.

Floppy_fix.lha

Short:    Fix for the floppy problem of newer Amiga 1200

This  text  and picture shows how to fix the problem that newer Amiga 1200 (of  Amiga  Technologies)  has  with  NDOS  disks  and df0:, with a little explanation of why they fail.

Maybe Amiga Technologies could add this hack to his manufacturing process, and so return to the Amiga the high compatibility that it always had ;-))

By Ian Stedman, 19th July 2002

Updated 04 February 2010